If you’ve ever visited r/atheism or
any major atheist and skeptic sites, you’re probably well aware of the
martyr complex, the guilt trip used by religious fundamentalists who
believe that not being allowed to impose the will of their leaders on
the rest of the society they inhabit, is tantamount to persecution. In
the United States this is often played out in attempts to institute
public prayer, force the government to somehow declare a preference for
Christianity as the national religion, or at least as the preferred
religion of the state. In Israel, ultra-Orthodox communities’ demands to
segregate and control the nation have far more severe consequences.
Their towns in West Bank settlements are quickly becoming security hazards according to growing voices from the IDFand
lately, they’ve gone overboard by invoking the history of Jewish
persecution in Europe in a way that I could only describe as downright
shameful. Jewish history is filled with stories of being chased out of
counties and hunted down by members of other faiths. and those stories
are quoted on a regular basis. But not like this.

You
see, ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem upset that the secular
authorities interrupted their effort to enforce segregation by gender
around them with harassment and violence, marched in protest of
the police putting a man who vandalized a religiously liberal bookshop
in jail, while wearing yellow stars of David. Yes, the same yellow stars
Jews were forced to wear by medieval Inquisitors and Nazi extermination
squads. Apparently, the police frowning on a Jewish fundamentalist
harassing and attacking people who don’t follow a 3,000 year old
morality codex and don’t object to being in the same space as other
humans with different genitals or suffer a panic attack imagining how
G-d will punish them for behaving like sane, modern people, is exactly
the same as the Holocaust. This was such an extreme and exploitative
display that several prominent Israeli politicians blew a fuse or two, demanding that ultra-Orthodox rabbis condemn these protest. The rabbis responded by whining about the Israeli media apparently ignoring vicious attacks on their followers by secularists.

Considering
that the ultra-Orthodox are often said to be a drain on Israel who
demand state benefits with free education for their enormous families
(yes, enormous, I’ve personally seen ten to 16 child families in Tel
Aviv with frightening regularity) after which they often refuse to
recognize the state or follow secular laws they don’t like, of course there’s a lot of tension between them and secular Israelis.
However, it’s really hard to buy the tale of systematic persecution of
the ultra-Orthodox when they’re the ones vandalizing private property,
spitting on little girls, and assaulting soldiers for not immediately
bulldozing over Arab protests in the West Bank. So I certainly
understand why their claims that Arab grievances get aired in Israeli
press while the media censors tales of their plight would fall on deaf
years. They’re wild exaggerations at best or outright fabrications at
worst and their ridiculous stunt in Jerusalem hardly adds credence to
their claims. If anything, the Israeli secularists see spoiled,
authoritarian bullies who demand government handout after government
handout spitting on the deaths of their grandparents and
great-grandparents because they refuse to follow the laws of the land.

Oh
and by the way, ultra-Orthodox Jews imposing their will on others and
clashing with secular Jews who like to pride themselves on their
adaptability to the modern world is not a uniquely Israeli phenomenon.
In fact, the small enclave of Kiryas Joel in New York has become a place
for Judaic fundamentalists to set up their haven of intolerance and
authoritarianism. When a study found it to be the poorest city in
America, stories of what an unsuspecting visitor to the town may expect
started coming out as did the stories of Jews who grew up there, and
their interactions with Jews in nearby New York City. As one such
lengthy tale shows, the result is usually very bad news for all those involved as
the residents of Kiryas Joel rebel at any signs of modernity or a break
with tradition while secular Jews are offended by having their ancestry
being called into question when they’re lectured for listening to music
or being around members of the opposite sex in public without a
separation. If the ultra-Orthodox really are victims of the secular
world, they certainly don’t act like victims neither in Israel or in
America if we pause to consider even a small sampling of their
interactions with humans who don’t want to step 800 years back in time
not to be spit upon, harassed, or have their property vandalized.